"Or do we reserve such days to glorify those who are sent off to kill people overseas?I started a response comment, but felt it should be more than just a comment, that it deserved a post of its own. Here it is:
The United Nations General Assembly designated January 27—the anniversary of the liberation of Auschwitz-Birkenau—as International Holocaust Remembrance Day. I would wager that some people are very thankful for those who went overseas rather than disparage them. My dad was one of those people and I am dam proud of him."
Oliver, I understand that there have been situations where taking up arms was a necessary form of self protection. My paternal grandparents died in a Nazi concentration camp, possibly Auschwitz, so I understand that argument and thank your father for fighting Nazi Germany. My father and step-father both served in the US military during WW II after fleeing Nazi Germany.
But let's be clear. The US did not go into WW II to liberate concentration camp victims. The State Department consciously restricted visas for Jews fleeing the Nazis. The British and US military passed on disrupting concentration camp infrastructure during the war. The US public opposed joining the war in Europe and it took Pearl Harbor to change that opinion.
WW II ended almost 75 years ago! What good wars would you like to cite since then? What about the various countries in which the US is killing soldiers and civilians right now?
There are legitimate reasons to go to war. But there are few legitimate reasons to start wars. My point here was not to dis-honor veterans, but rather to point out that our adulation of them is way out of proportion.
Soldiers are victims of what Eisenhower - the hero of WW II - called the military-industrial complex back in the 1950s. Nine percent of US homeless today are veterans. We go to war because it serves the war industry.
By elevating soldiers as the greatest possible heroes, we make it easier to lure 18 year olds into joining the military. Poverty is another structural way to recruit soldiers. And let's not forget all the well-paid mercenaries the US uses now. We haven't started building monuments to them yet.
The nationalism that accompanies this adulation (American flags are as important to Memorial Day as Christmas trees are to Christmas) also has the effect of demonizing the people of other countries. Vietnamese were 'gooks' not humans, so they were acceptable targets.
We should honor legitimate war heroes, but we shouldn't glorify war. We should stop creating more war corpses and shattered veterans. That was my point.
I'd recommend a few resources, one 80 years old - Upton Sinclair's Lanny Budd series, starting with World's End (available at the link free), and these contemporary ones: this Youtube on rethinking Memorial Day featuring Danny Sjursen. Let's continue this after you've checked out these links (particularly the last two, since the first one is pretty lengthy.) (Upton Sinclair wrote The Jungle.)
[UPDATED May 31, 2020: And here's a reassessment of the US role in WW II and the idea of 'the good war.']
Steve, my father was an enrolled conscientious objector to the Second World War -- he was studying for Christian ministry at college and I guess he took its founder's message of peace to one's enemies seriously enough to take that step. He never mentioned this to us kids growing up; I discovered this when I found my father's draft registration card from the early 1940s while doing genealogy research.
ReplyDeleteIt was an incredible revelation; it squared with his later opposition to the death penalty, for sermons against the Vietnam Conflict (war, wasn't it?). Like Oliver, I am proud of my father, yet he and I differ in what we're proud of.
We won't likely reconcile our differences. I'm okay with that. Peace.